DIFC governor denies $1.5bn Abu Dhabi offer

Dubai, December 20, 2010

Abu Dhabi has not made an offer to buy Dubai financial services assets, which includes the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) for $1.5 billion, the DIFC governor was reported as saying.

'There are no offers from Abu Dhabi,' Arabic daily Al Bayan quoted Ahmed Humaid Al-Tayer as saying. 'There is nothing on offer to sell,' he added.

Britain's Sunday Times said in an unattributed report on Sunday that Abu Dhabi is in talks to buy a 20 percent stake in the London Stock Exchange held by indebted neighbour Dubai.

Al-Tayer said the report was 'not true whatsoever.'

The LSE stake sale would be part of an Abu Dhabi buyout of Borse Dubai, which owns controlling stakes in local exchanges the Dubai Financial Market and Nasdaq Dubai, the Sunday Times reported, and would follow Borse Dubai's sale of about half of its shares in Nasdaq OMX last week. - Reuters